Manual voter register could be compromised, RMS boss SK Macharia says

Royal Media Services Chairman Dr SK Macharia has advocated for the use of the biometric voter register to identify voters during this year’s General Election as opposed to a manual one.

Speaking on behalf of the Media Owners Association when he appeared before the Joint Legal and ICT committee of the Senate, DR Macharia noted that the voting system in Kenya cannot be said to be electronic, although the identification of voters is electronic.

Dr Macharia noted that the biometric voter register (BVR) which contains the details of every voter registered at a polling station would be present at every polling station, adding that if one fails, another machine could be brought containing the same details.

“There is no issue of manual or electronic voting. We have the biometric voter register and the same equipment is used to identify the voters,” he said.

He noted that if there is a discrepancy between the number of voters said to have voted at a particular polling station and the number of ballots cast, then the number of ballots cast should stand.

The media owner spoke against using the manual voter register saying it could be easily compromised. He noted that the electronic register captured a number of identifying features including the fingerprints and eye colour among others.

“If you print the voter register you will have my name but you cannot have my fingerprints and my eyes. If someone insists that he is registered you can type on the equipment and his picture and fingerprint will be identified,” he added.

He noted that the manual register could open up the process to manipulation as it relies on manual crossing of the names of people who have already voted.

“If it is [the] manual register alone that identifies [voters] you can have as many people vote assuming that you just cancel all the names”, he said.

“There is no 100 per cent electronic voting in Kenya, not even in Ghana. What we’re saying is let the identification be from the biometric equipment not from a printed paper. Once the process is finished everything else is manual from vote marking [to] vote counting. Should the number [of people] be different from the number of votes in the ballot box, then the ballots cast carry”, he added.

He urged the committee to borrow a leaf from Ghana’s elections in 2012 and 2016 where the country used only the electronic voter register to verify the identity of voters.